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Thursday, August 16, 2012

The Haunted Hotel at Tequendama Falls

Tequendama Falls (or Salto del Tequendama) is a major tourist attraction about 30 km (19 miles) southwest of Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia. The thousands of tourists who visit the area to admire the 157 metre (515 feet) tall waterfall and the surrounding nature, make a stop at another nearby landmark as well, the abandoned Hotel del Salto.

The luxurious Hotel del Salto opened in 1928 to welcome wealthy travelers visiting the Tequendama Falls area. Situated just opposite to the waterfall and on the edge of the cliff, it provided a breathtaking view to its guests. During the next decades though, Bogotá river was contaminated and tourists gradually lost their interest to the area. The hotel finally closed down in the early 90's and was left abandoned ever since. The fact that many people in the past chose that spot to commit suicide, made others believe that the hotel is haunted.
More recently, Hotel del Salto was turned into a museum of biodiversity and culture (Casa Museo del Salto del Tequendama).

I was there in July of 2015 and the entire hotel was gutted inside and renovated. All under construction, but we pleaded with workers and they did let us take a peek and had a finished area we were able to enter. The hotel is now a museum and I have the privelege of seeing it being restored.

I had a dream about that place, chiefly, the upper middle window. I was flying through it and our of the back of the house. The whole place is familiar to me because of this dream, I cannot believe I am seeing it now.

I had a dream about it too! A pink hotel by a waterfall. I saw just one photo of the building on an "abandoned places" list and I did not know that there was a waterfall nearby until I just learned the name of the hotel now and researched it - I was fascinated by the photo and now I am even more fascinated because I remember the dream, although the hotel looked a little different I am certain this was the "same place." I even wonder if I died there once in a past life or something. So weird.

There have been many suicides at this place. People jumping off the cliff for ever. The traumatic experiences are remembered through lives, as vague memories or feelings & sometimes as dreams. How old are you?

Beautiful photos! I never knew about this place until a few minutes ago when I found it by chance while searching for something else. I will definitely visit this place in the near future. I agree with some of the other comments here; I would have loved to see it as it was originally left. If they wanted to convert it into a museum, what better way to revive the interest in it than to try and recreate its original features.

I took the tour on Saturday, July 5th, and the tour guide told us that he sleeps there in the hotel since he gives the tour on the weekends and also works on restoration during the week. They open the museum only during the weekends. He says he has never seen a ghost there and believes that the haunted stories come from people that would visit the grounds would see the caretakers in the windows and would mistake them for ghosts.

Also, the suicides are people who fall in love and are told that they can not get married. So they would jump off the cliff hand in hand. Also they gave us literature which says that the natives believed that when they jumped off the cliff they would turn into eagles and fly away.

One more thing, the tour guide told us that the hotel was also a train station. There were no roads when it was built, there was only a train track, and so you could buy tickets to the train in the hotel.

PLEASE don't let them update or modernize to make it look modern 1950+! I don't mind if they put bathrooms and electricity in an old place but never buy an antique and try to turn it into something "mod." I hate to see that happen. I could look at this place all day. I'd like to know who owned it. I agree, it is too white inside but I'm glad that they are not letting it go to total decay.

I remember this from when I was a kid, we used to pass it when we went for holidays in the hot country outside Bogotá. It was a hotel in those days, and my dad always stopped in the car park so we could take photos. Sometimes it was foggy, sometimes the falls spray was swirling around, the building was bewitching, the falls were breathtaking, the whole situation was magical. I have never forgotten it and wish we could have stayed there at least once. Quite a construction job when it was built!

I wish that Stephen King had of made Rose Red in that beautiful place. Long before I found out that was not really a rose red in Seattle, I could feel myself being drawn there which was weird in itself. This place is on my bucket list as soon as I can find a bucket, ha.

Even though the place is beautiful, the waterfall is fed by one of the most polluted rivers in the world, the Bogota river. The place constantly reeks of untreated sewage and other contamination, and that mist you see everywhere is that same dirty water suspended in the air. This is what eventually led to the demise and abandonment of this hotel. Until the river is cleaned up (which by Colombian standards is probably not going to happen in our lifetime) there is very little potential to recover this place.